A Survey of State Initiatives

The Minnesota legislature this year passed a number of measures to
strengthen mathematics and science education, including a comprehensive
Educational Technology Act. Funded at $5.8 million for the biennium,
the act will provide funds for inservice training in the use of
educational technology, the establishment of up to 10 demonstration
sites around the state, and development and evaluation of educational
software.

Most of the efforts are to be directed at promoting "computer
literacy," programming, and applications, rather than computer-assisted
instruction. Funds have also been allocated to help districts buy
software rated as superior by state evaluators.

Another $500,000 was appropriated for inservice training for
teachers of mathematics, science, and social studies. To be conducted
by the state education department--probably through contractors in some
areas--the inservice efforts will be modeled closely after the
"refresher" institutes formerly sponsored by the National Science
Foundation.

A third initiative that could bear on math and science education is
the creation of an Academic Excellence Foundation. The group, whose
directors include leaders from business, government, education, and
civic groups, is charged with identifying and recognizing outstanding
students, teachers, and programs, and with establishing such programs
as summer institutes for talented students and "mentor" arrangements
with businesses and institutions. Established with $150,000 in state
money, the foundation is expected to raise funds privately for many of
its projects.

The work of another group, the Minnesota Alliance for Science, got
under way in June. Supported by the Bush Foundation and the University
of Minnesota, the group is to explore ways to improve math and science
education in kindergarten through grade 12, possibly including course
requirements, ways of sharing teachers, and methods of informing the
general public of the importance of the subjects. The alliance's policy
recommendations are to be submitted to the state board of education in
late summer or fall.

The state currently requires only that students take science and
math through grade 9. However, according to David L. Dye, the education
department's math specialist, about half the schools in the state
require a second year of math, and more than half require a second year
of science, generally biology. The state colleges and universities are
in the early stages of discussing stiffer admission requirements in
math, science, and foreign languages.

Although the state's colleges are producing few new science and math
teachers, the shortage is not now severe, Mr. Dye said, because K-12
enrollments have declined markedly. About 5 percent of secondary math
teachers are not properly licensed and are teaching with one-year state
waivers.

"Projections are that we probably won't start really hurting until
about 1990, when our student population in secondary schools bottoms
out," Mr. Dye said.

A bill that would have provided forgivable loans for prospective
teachers was withdrawn when the U.S. Congress began deliberations on
similar legislation.

The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, considered a leading
agency nationwide in the development and distribution of educational
technology, underwent some structural changes during the 1983
legislative session. Once a full-fledged state agency, the mecc is now
"quasi-public" and has been freed of certain state-government
restrictions on salaries and hiring policies. It develops software,
which it sells at cost to Minnesota schools and other dues-paying
members at cost and at a profit to other schools. It also acts as a
broker for several computer firms, supplying hardware to schools at
below-market prices.

Minnesota does not require computer courses--"largely because we
haven't agreed on what constitutes computer literacy," Mr. Dye
noted--but that may be considered by the Alliance for Science.

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